Do you want to close more sales?
Do you wish there was an easy process to help you get more clients? Well, this week I'm excited to have guest Debra Angilletta on the show! Debra explains 6 simple questions you should be asking on your next sales call to close more sales. Debra is a virtual CFO, financial Coach and former Wall Street Trader who has spent the past spent 30 years in the sales trenches! On this episode of The Pricing is Positioning Podcast, we discuss the importance of closing a sale, Debra’s business background and of course, how she approaches pricing! You know, we all want to be able to close deals. We all want to know how to get more engagements, and you're going to love today's guest. Today I have Debra Angilletta from the Sales Mastery Online Course, and she's just an awesome closer, and I can't wait to have a conversation with her. Debra, how are you doing today? How are you doing coming from New Jersey? I'm doing really, really well, Paul. Thanks for having me here today. How are you doing? How are you doing? That's awesome. Well Debra, you know I have a joint friend, John Nemo, and that's how we met through John, and like John you work with a lot of, oh I would say high end consultants, C-suite execs and stuff like that, but those that don't know you in my audience, we have a lot of freelancers, coaches, consultants in my audience, but tell us a little bit about you, your background, your brand, and what you're doing in this knowledge economy and freelance world. Yeah, you know it's been an interesting ride. That's what I can tell you for sure. So I actually started out in finance and wound up working for a couple of Wall Street firms as an equity trader and in sales trading. So throughout that experience which was very, very interesting working in that industry, once it got to a point where I was going to make my exit, I decided to start my own business, and the catalyst for that is that I got pregnant with my first my child, my first and only child. While I was on my maternity leave, I was like, "Hmm, what is it that I want to do? What is it that I want to do? Hmm." Well, I had the finance background so on my maternity leave, I started to test a couple of things out and actually started my business on that leave and then went ahead and left my job, and then became my own consultant. Awesome. And yeah, it's really a matter ... I think one of the most important things and the best piece of information that somebody gave me was, because I was toying with a bunch of different modalities, is that go back to your native knowledge. What is it that you know better than anybody else, and I knew that sales, finance, operations, and organizing things was my strength so that's what I built my business on. Oh, okay. And what year was that that you went out on your own, did you make the transition from the corporate world to your own brand? So I started my business back in 2010, and I would say, listen, there were two years of like I think I had somebody come in the house and help me two days a week to ... I had like a little consulting gig. I actually, you want to know what I did, Paul? I actually went into my job, resigned, and they wound up hiring me as a consultant for financial consulting for the employees. It was actually a really good win-win for the first two years while I was home with my daughter and starting to build my business and understand what it meant to build a business. So I would say I got really serious about 2012, and it's been haven't looked back since. Haven't looked back, went out, so you're on your own, you're having the freedom and everything. Did you have those fears of going out on your own, like making the jump? Were you scared, or because you knew were confident, or did you have doubts at all? Oh, of course I had doubts. I was up at 3:00AM sweating, you know, but yeah I mean I think the way to describe the feeling is moving from a corporate, well paying job. Now, you got to think about this, Paul, for a second. You know, 2008 was a big market crash, right, for Wall Street, and a lot of people in 2010 as a result of that were losing jobs. I had a job that I was walking away from. And so that made it like ... Talk about the on the shoulders, right. And so the feeling was like jumping off of the Grand Canyon without a parachute. I'm not going to lie to you, and I did get some pushback from some people that I knew and some family members, but overall I think people trusted my judgment, thank god. But yeah, it was hard. And that's the thing, I have more of an attitude now because I've been through it. When you're an employee at a company, it's very, very nice, safe, secure. You do your job, you get your paycheck, it's fine. But when you're off on your own, making these decisions to pivot, and you don't really understand what it is to face these fears because your fears. So since then, I have more of a burn the ship attitude. Like I'm moving forward, I'm not looking back. Let's get this party started, right? Yeah, exactly. Just, you know, what is it ready, fire, aim? Ready, fire, aim. Sometimes you just got to do it, man, and just get out of that comfort zone and do it. You and I are very parallel paths. I left a little earlier, but same fears, same struggles, 18 year career, full benefits, everything, and family, and mortgages, and, "Oh, no," I'm waking up in the middle of the night, "Am I doing the right thing?" But man, once you get on the other side, it's so enlightening and empowering to just control your own destiny. That's awesome. Well, you've done great. I know you've got a great brand, you've done a lot of things, and you work with a lot of ... I consider you a high end consultant. You work with a lot of C-suite execs, the C-suite people and corporations and so forth, but how did you ... You kind of had a background in that already, and were you able to leverage that into your personal brand, or did you get a big break after you went out on your own? How did you get those higher end clients? Yeah, it's a good question. And listen, I started off with small business owners because that's where I was comfortable, and I felt like, you know when I was starting out I knew I could make an impact on that level, and as I started to coach them and work with them in that consulting capacity of helping them grow their businesses, I learned a couple of key things. Number one, which most people don't realize about themselves, is you're better than you think you are. Right, if you're doing really good for a small business, you could do really, really well for a big business. Why not make that jump? It's really not much different. Right? There's a couple pieces of skillsets, but you can always fill in those skillsets with education. That never bothered me. But I think it was the confidence level. And then on the other end of it was is that I just needed to make sure that I was not staying in one place or else I wasn't going to move the dial on my income either. So that was another thing. You know, you're doing just as much work for the bigger companies than you are for the smaller companies so why not get paid for it. You know what I mean? Right. So it was really, I think, the confidence factor was what really catapulted me, and working with getting great relationships, working with other people that were up to the same thing as me, getting good mentors, and making sure you're investing in that education. So I think that was a big part of it. Yeah. No, that's awesome. That's such a great path. A lot of that, I did the same thing. I started with small business and eventually worked up to the Fortune 500 clients, and you cut your teeth, you pay your dues, and when the opportunity strikes you're ready. So that's so awesome. Now one of your sweet spots, or what do we call it your superpower as we say in this expertise world, is being able to close deals, being able to help people like myself and people listening close deals or get the client to buy in, not just leave the conversation with, "Well, I'll give you a call," but actually closing the deal, and you have a great resources about, and your Sales Mastery course, and you have a framework built around that. I'd like to know more about that. Not just for my listeners but selfishly, I want to be a better closer. I want to be able to close more deals, and I want to glom as much information as I can from you while I have you on the phone. Yeah, so what I realized early on in my career and also even watching other people in sales, I think that salespeople are really good at talking and making connections and making conversations, but I think where the discomfort comes in is when you actually have to close the deal and make the sale, and a lot of people think they close the deal when they really didn't close the deal. So that's one of the things that I teach in my course because that was always kind of hanging out out there, and one of the biggest problems or challenges when it comes to this issue is that many people start doing work with somebody without having that contact in place or a clear, working roadmap of what you're going to be doing and also the investment that the client has to make. Then it just kind of like you start doing work for them, and then you start sending them invoices, and they're like, "What is this?" It just creates this huge disconnect. And so yeah, starting to do work and not getting paid doesn't feel too good. So that's where I saw a real need to go ahead and feel that pull and teach people really how to close the deal, and also how to put terminology around it so you're comfortable. So for example, I'll give you an example. If we're on a sales call, we'll talk about something that you like to do. All right, I always position a close to say these couple of really, really key words. So if you would like to move forward with this, here are the next steps. And I think just having that light terminology instead of saying, "Oh, you said yes? All right, here's what," you know what I mean, and go down a crazy path. It's a matter of just leading them to what is next. Okay, so if you want to move forward, here are the next steps. We'll put a nondisclosure agreement in place, we'll send over the contract, we'll get the payment terms all put together, and I actually teach this in my course. It's a really, really powerful force that you can put into your closing at the end of your sales calls that actually closes the deal where you get the contract in place, and you collect the money before you even start giving away your services for free. Absolutely, 100% up front. That's a big deal. Yep. Exactly. Yeah, so now what you're talking about is in the whole sales ecocycle, so after we've had a discovery call with my client I've come up with solutions, and a program or a package of whatever, and now I'm sitting at the table or on the phone with him, and I'm getting ready to end the call. And so you're saying that that's where you have a process from that point forward that really increases the close rate for your students. Yeah, it does. It does, and that part of the process, that's the process that most people skip, but we try to make it really as comfortable as possible. Because I know there's a lot of discomfort with that because we're like this [inaudible 00:13:02], "Say yes." You know, "No whammies, no whammies, say yes," right? Yeah. And you know, I teach you how to do that transition, and like I said, using those magic words of, "Okay, great. So if you would like to move forward, here are the next steps." So I'm almost like, I'm not forcing them into a yes, but I am guiding them to an answer whether it's yes, no, or no for now, and that's fine. You want to get an explicit answer from your prospect. You don't want to leave them hanging out there like, "Eh, I don't know about this." You want them to say I'll think about it. Yeah, I'll think about it, right? And so there's ways to go ahead and combat that, and the terminology of, "Okay, great. So if you decide to partner with me, here are next steps." So you just kind of play it out as if. And so those are the magic words, next steps. And just painting that picture for them. And then I say to them, "So what do you," at the end of that, "What do you think the next step is that makes sense at the time?" Right? It's very, very disarming. It's not assuming anything, but it's really asking in a really nice way, "What's your decision?" Right. Now, some people I've heard different people say go in like a used car salesman right here and say, "What will it take for you to move forward today?" Is it okay to be that direct, or is that a little too used car salesmanish? Yeah, and you know what, Paul, I think it's all style and preference. I'm a very, very easy breezy I want to have a really good sales conversation. I want to get a lot of information. I do want to be of service and have that person walk away from that discovery call better than what they were when they came to the call. So I do want to provide value, but I don't get too caught up in the outcome. I want to go ahead and serve, and if there is an opportunity ... This is the other thing, too. Not only is the prospect interviewing you, but you're also interviewing the prospect. And so I think if you kind of change the lens on that versus, "I got too close this person," they might not be a good fit. So it's nice little back and forth conversation, and the way I position this is is that you don't have to do any work on a discovery call. There are six questions that you can ask, and that's all you have to do, and say, "All right, great. This was great information. Next steps would be I'll put together a proposal for you. We'll go over that. So that's going to take another 15 minutes on another call. How's next Tuesday at 2:00PM?" Right? And you just schedule that call, work on your proposal, and come back. Never send a proposal by email, ever. Always go over with the prospect at the time that you're going to present it. Right? And that's another hole that people fall into. You're pricing without a conversation because people don't like big numbers. Right. You've got to talk them through, the sales conversation will tee you up to go ahead and present that proposal. Right, right. I see what you're saying. That makes a lot of sense. Because I do send out a lot of email proposals. Now, I do propose, I'm a proponent of three options in your pricing, but even then it's so much better, especially on higher ticket items. I mean, if you're dealing with a $15,000-50,000 item, it's better to have a conversation than just shoot an email in a lot of cases. Absolutely. You know, if it's a $500 item or something, maybe that's a little different, but those higher ticket things I think that's definitely good advice. In your secret questions, can you go over some of those with us as far as the types of questions people should be asking when they're trying to close? You know, we all struggle with that, but what are some of those questions that you would advise us to ask, to keep it conversational and keep the likelihood of them closing open? Yeah. So just kind of set the tone also, Paul, is that when you do get on a discovery call, a lot of people think that you have to put on a dog and pony show, and you really don't have to because the call isn't about you. It is about your prospect. So then you treat the prospect as such, and this is why we ask questions. This is kind of like the pull, you're pulling out information, it's the pull technique versus the push. This is who I am, this is how great I am, this is how many years in business I have, this is how many letters of alphabet soup I have after my name and certifications, right? We don't care about that. They want to talk about themselves so get them talking about themselves, and then it's like Christmas in July, right? ... pull all this information, and then that's how you put together your proposal. You're using their words and finding out what they want from you. So some of the questions really are put together in a specific order based on what I call the psychology of a sale, right, no surprise, everybody's heard of that. So the initial call, a lot of times if people don't know you there's that kind of hesitance where we go back into our reptilian brain, it's the bottom part of our brainstem, where we go into this fight or flight. So we have to be familiar and not a threat, right? So I always like opening with a curiosity question. Like, "Hey, I'm curious, how did you find me, or how did we come to the call today, or what's going on in your business?" So, number one is always opening with a curiosity question to disarm your prospect, and once you get them talking about themselves, but that one question is so powerful because if they start talking, talking, talking, talking, that's gold . You want them talking, and you take really good notes at the same time. So that's really how you springboard off of the conversation. The next thing that has to happen is a big mistake, and I know a lot of your listeners will identify with this, is that have you ever gone through a sales call, everything goes really good, it's about 30 minutes later, and you drop your offer, it makes sense at this point in time, you know what they need and everything else, and then all of a sudden they say, "Oh, that's great, but I have to go ask Blankety Blank about this," right? It's either the business partner, the wife, the husband, whatever it is. The gatekeeper. Yes the gatekeeper. You're like really, it's like the balloon, and it just lost all its air, right? All the air just got sucked out of the balloon, it's sucked out of the room, and you're like, "Ugh, that's 30 minutes of my life I'll never get back." So I try to take the most common roadblocks and put it into the conversation so that you know your barriers up front before you get to proposal, and I think that's a really good way, and a strategic way for your listeners, to start positioning themselves differently from everybody else, number one, but number two making that time that you have with your prospect count so that you understand what are the things that they might say no to ahead of time so you can put a proposal in front of them that makes sense. So question number two is you always want to find out who the decision maker is. Okay. Got it, got it. I'm writing it down. I'm writing this down. And I'll have a resource. I'll make a resource available for your listeners as well if they want to get this, This is good. Yeah, always find out the decision maker, and if you don't have all of them on the call either invite somebody on the call or reschedule because it is really a huge waste of your time, right? Your time as entrepreneurs and business owners, our time is our most precious commodity. Absolutely. Okay. So that was number two. Number two, find out who the decision maker was. Number three, this is good. Yeah, number three is I think that one of the things I see a lot of the time is that we don't go deep enough on the problem or the pain. So you've got to find out what is their frustration, what is their pain, what is it that's keeping them up at night. Because if you've got somebody on the phone that's just tire kicking or trying to see, compare your services to somebody else, the only thing that's going to make that sale stick is if you have a really, really sticky, or what we call an anchor, for them to want to work with you. So you've got to find that urgency. So one of the things that I tell my clients is that if you hear a sigh or you hear some sort of indication of somebody displaying some form of exhaustion or frustration or like that, "Ugh," or that slam on the table, right, it's like you know you've got the pain. So you have to keep drilling down, and drilling down, and drilling down, and don't keep it surfacing. You've got to get to the core problem. And I'll give you a quick example. I was working with this gentleman. So most of my clients are IT med service providers for my core business, and I was on the phone with him, and he's like, "Yeah, I just want to find enough money to hire somebody else," and I'm like okay. And so I was like he's got good revenues and everything else, like what's going on here? And so before I pitched my solution to him, I said, "Okay, so why do you want to find this second employee? You've got good revenues, you can hire people. What's at the core of all of this?" And I kept asking, kept asking. And he slammed his hand down on the table just like that, and he said, "My son is now nine years old. I missed three years of his baseball games, and I'm not going to miss another one. So I need to, in the baseball season, be out of here by 3:00 so I can go to his games. I don't want to miss another game. I'm losing time. So I need to find money in order to hire somebody." So my work that I had to do with him was who is it that he needs to hire, and we had to find a salary for him. So it wasn't about the money and the revenues, it was about what is it that I need to solve this problem. I need a number two, and how do I get a number two quick, and how do I finance it? How do I afford it, yeah. Yeah, and that's how specific we got of what I was going to do working with him. He easily said yes to my offer because I got his problem and his frustration. Yeah, and you can't put a monetary value on being able to go to your son's baseball games. So as long as you could come up with a good plan to that pain, he was probably sold immediately. You know, because-there's just not a price tag for that, but worth every penny to him. Yeah, so you've got to go deep on the pain and see if you can get what I call the visceral reaction, what is it that? That hand slam, that right, the sigh. Yeah, and it's Oh, let me tell you about this. Yeah, and then they open up and you're like, "You can't write fast enough," you know what I mean? You're like ahh, this is great. Yeah, good stuff. Okay. Yep. Yeah, so that's that for the pain. Okay. It'll get you there if you really watch for the visceral touchpoints there. Okay, so that's number three, identify the pain or watch for the pain, listen for the sigh or the hand slam. Okay, so what's number four? So number four is you want to identify roadblocks. So here what I tend to say is, "Okay, what could get in the way of us working together?" So I just throw it down. Now, this is a discovery call. You have this problem, what could get in the way of us working together, or what could get in the way of you solving this problem? Now you and I know, and your listeners know being high end consultants and coaches, is that we know that there's usually three common roadblocks that are always thrown up when we're in a sales conversation or a proposal. It's time, it's money, and then the third one is, "I need to ask permission from somebody else," the gatekeeper, but don't forget we nixed that in number two. So now we're only down to time and money, and you want them to tell you what's going to get in the way, right? So it may flush out a budget, right? It may flush out resources. It may flush out, "Well, we don't want to do this right now. We want to do this three months from now." Ah, then you'll position your proposal much differently once you understand the roadblocks upfront versus finding out on the other end of the proposal, right? Isn't that genius? That's not mine, by the way. I learned it as I'd gone through the learning process of sales and the psychology of the sales. Flushing those out early on. Yeah, that's brilliant. Yeah, because the sooner you can get those objections identified, the sooner you can overcome them. So true. That's awesome. Yeah, and then number five goes into the area of ... You know, I always say I would love to be a fly on the wall for my prospects. I'd like to know what's going on in their office, what makes them tick, what's going on, and this is a question that kind of almost lets you be a fly on the wall because they know or they have some really good relationships in their business, and what you want to know and flush out in this question is, "Who are the really good relationships?" Meaning, and this is how you ask it, "What does a successful partnership with one of your vendors look like?" And what this starts to flush out is what do they like about working with a vendor that they absolutely love. It may be a communication style. It may be that they do quarterly reviews. You don't know what it is. You have to understand how your prospect wants to have their service served up that's going to be success in their mind. So by asking that question, you actually go into their mind and start pulling out, "What does a successful relationship look like?" That's number five. So what does success look like? And I usually position it, because in my industry it makes sense, so what does a successful relationship look like with one of your vendors? Who's one of your favorite vendors that you love to work with, and why do you love to work with them? Or if you're a coach or a consultant, you don't have a specific niche or industry and you're not using specific terminology, you can say, "Okay, what would a successful engagement look like for you?" So there they're giving outcomes. They're giving communication styles. They're giving preferences. That's what you want to flush out because all of this is framing your proposal. Right, and they might bring up frustrations with previous vendors. Like, "Oh, I hate getting billed on a net 30 and never knowing what it's for," or, "They don't report to me. They don't give me a report every two weeks on a status of the project." Well boom, now you know, "Hey, I've got to include a status report every two weeks in my proposal. So that's brilliant. Yeah, it's great because then you're not going to do what everybody else does, and sometimes we think that we're providing them value, but if they're not receiving it as value, it's worth nothing. So understand up front what they like. Like, I have some clients who don't want to talk to me three times a month. They want to talk to me once a month for 30 minutes and that's it, and then work with their assistant to get everything else done. Some people are like that, so. Yeah. Yeah, at least that question five there will get you what that success means to them. That's brilliant. So there are six total. So that was five. What's number six, then? Oo, are you sitting down? I am. Do you have your seatbelt on? Yes. All right. So, one of the things, and this is one of the biggest mistakes we made, and listen I made this for years, and years, and years, and I always avoided it, but here's where you can start filling in a huge gap. So your prospect, most of time, and I'm not going to say all of the time, they want to understand what is going to be their return on investment, and I know some people hear that and they're like, "I don't want to have to talk about that. I can't guarantee a result." Like I get it, I totally get it. I can't guarantee my results. I can guarantee I'm going to show up 1,000%, but I can't guarantee what you're going to do, right? But how do you say that? So what we need to do here is we need to flush out what is the value of the solution. And so you can do this in a couple of different ways. You can be very explicit and say, "Okay, if you partner with me to get this particular outcome, what is that worth to you?" So what is the value of us working together? So you're trying to find an ROI factor. Now, in my case of the example I used earlier where my prospect, which turned into a client, was trying to solve this problem. The value of the solution was $125,000. Why? Because he didn't know how much he was going to have to come up with in order for an annual salary for this particular new employee, right? The value of the solution was $125,000. So if they're going to invest in you, they have to understand what their return is. So it kind of goes like this, if they're going to invest $10,000 with you and you're solving a $125,000 problem, they can easily see the return on investment. The bigger that gap, the smaller your number looks, right? So like I said, people don't like big numbers so create the big number as the value, and then you come in with the investment, and then it looks like a no-brainer that your prospect would say yes to. So that is another critical question to ask. Yeah, what is the value to the solution or the ROI, correct? And like I said, all of the prospects want to know that, and a lot of them will be right in your face and be like, "How are you going to guarantee results?" And listen, they're not really looking for guarantees. They just want a number. So instead of running away from the conversation, now you know how to handle it and just take it down head on. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's good. I'm going to recap real quick for listeners, if that's okay. Number one is how to start the conversation and get the curiosity going and put your client at ease, and don't make it all about you and how your grandpa started the company. Make it about them. Number two, find out who the decision maker is. Make sure you're not dealing with a gatekeeper. Nothing like playing the perfect game or hitting a home run and then all of a sudden find out that you've got a gatekeeper that can't even make the decision. Number three is identify the pain, their pain, and look for those, what did you call them, the moments of? The visceral reactions. Yes. And then number four, roadblocks and objections, look for roadblocks and objections. Ask them if they have any or what those are. Number five, what does a successful engagement look like, or what does a successful vendor look like to them and let them come up with those successes because then you can include those in your proposal so you don't do like everybody else that has already made them angry. And then number six, what is the value to the solution or the ROI? Did I sum that up okay, Debra? Oh, that was beautiful, Paul. That was awesome. Thank you. Yeah, and I know you've got a great .pdf resource. I'm going to put the link in there, and I guess they can get that at, what is that, is that a ... Yeah, it's mastermysales.com. Okay. I'll put the link in there. You guys can click on it, download it. Man, I mean these are great tactics that I think really help. But I've got to ask you this, those are great ... Well, actually before we move to that question I've got to ask you one other thing on the sales process. When you're, this is kind of just a general thing, when you're in a discovery call. A lot of times I find what I find in discovery calls is the clients or the prospect really want to talk about solutions. Obviously you identify their pain, but I feel that the more you provide solutions in a discovery call, you're actually devaluing and sometimes not positioning yourself the best that you could. I try to stay away from solutions in discovery calls. You know, you've got to dance around the edges a little bit, but I think if you just go full on discovery, sometimes people will get what they want in the call and won't call you back because you've solved their problem right then and there in some cases. Have you had any experience with that, or do you have any feelings on that? Yeah, this is the, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" problem. Yeah, I know a lot of people who have that, and I had that problem too for a long time until I banged my head against the wall enough to come up with a solution. And you know what, you kind of answered your own question, Paul, because, and this is good for your listeners too, is that you have to remember think about the terminology of what this call is. It is a discovery call. It is not a solution call. Solution call. Right? That's a quotable right there. Yeah. That's going to be your quote card, "This is a discovery call, not a solution call." Yeah, and so people pay for your solutions. It is your outreach and your ability to help someone to get clear on their problem, and that is the purpose of a discovery call. Most people, they have a problem, their hair's on fire, but they don't really know the problem behind the problem, and they don't know how to solve the problem. And some people don't even know what the problem is. They think something else is the problem than what it actually is. So the way that you approach that is by asking very specific questions in a very specific order. It unravels all of that and gets them out of this chaos. So the gifts that you're giving your prospect, it's not a solution, it is clarity, getting them crystal clear on what their problem is, and then really looking at a roadmap of, "Okay, so then what is the solution?" So that they tell you what it is so you can just insert that into your proposal, I told you no dog and pony show, comes right from your prospect. So that's the gift that you give them, the gift of clarity. Awesome. Okay, that makes so much sense. That makes so much sense, that is so helpful. Man, that's good stuff. I hope everybody out there listening is taking notes or tuning into the shownotes because those are some good golden nuggets right there, and that's good, helpful advice, Debra, really appreciate it. I've got to ask you this. You know, my show's all about pricing, and you know I've talked about using options and helping you get more value and stuff, and we've riffed on that a little bit, but let's talk a little bit of pricing, and you know we all struggle with pricing, but what are some areas that you've struggled in pricing over the years, and how did you overcome them to get that higher value? Were you undercharging yourself early on, and how did you overcome that and get to that higher level? Of course I was undercharging, come on. We all do it. We all do it. I think we all do it until we get a clue, and it's like, "Oh, I can probably do this for more money and bigger clients. Oh yeah, that's great. Maybe I'll sign up for that." So I'm going to tell you one of the biggest challenges I see probably isn't going to be a typical one that most people would think, but just stay with me here for a moment, Paul. I think the challenge is is when we get to proposal and we're trying to price a proposal, we try to step into our prospect's shoes and say, "What would they pay?" And I think that is one of the biggest mistakes that we can make. So I actually encourage a two part process. I say take all of the information that you got on the discovery call, put pricing to the side, and actually map out, write down, type out what is the solution that will solve their problem. Take pricing off the table. Get to what is the solution to their problem, write that down, look at it, and then what is the pricing around that? Because it may be a project for six months. It may be something at a certain hourly rate. You may have to pull in other resources. So I think taking ourselves out of the pricing conversation and into the solution, when you start from that perspective you're actually pricing your solution based on what is going to solve the problem, not what you think they're going to pay. So because if you can get yourself wrapped around that then you can sell yourself on that proposal. Because don't forget, 50% of the sale is confidence. And if you're not confident about your proposal and you're not confident that it's going to solve their problem then your goose is cooked, right? So I think that is a real empowering move that I learned that was like, "Whoa, this is awesome," and you can just take it from that perspective, what is the solution, and it may be too rich for them, but it's good for your prospect to know that if they want this solution in its entirety, this is going to be the investment." And then, you could always backtrack from there versus starting with your lowest offer. You start with your lowest offer, there's no place to go. You're toast. No, you got to anchor high as I always say. Anchor high. Yep, and you know you hit it on the head with starting with the higher amount because also if you also focus when you're getting ready to put your proposal on what you mentioned earlier, and that is the value. It's like hey, compared to the value that I'm providing, this is peanuts. You know, and that should give you confidence to go in there with your head high and not go, "It's $25,000," you know all timid. No, it's $25,000 because it's going to provide a solution that's going to generate $500,000. You know, you just boom, boom, boom. That's great advice, great advice. So Debra, over at mastermysales.com, you have the online course and the six question .pdf for closing a sale. What else, do you do coaching? What other products and services do you have over there on that webpage? Yep, so for right now I do offer an online sales mastery course. It is geared towards accountants, bookkeepers, and coaches whether they're involved in finance or business, but really any consultant or a coach can really utilize the resources in there. I just happened to be surrounded with a lot of bookkeepers and accountants all day long since I do have a ... my main practice is a CFO practice so doing outsource CFO work for IT companies. Yeah, so I actually created it for them, but that's ... So what we do is we have that course, and then we also have a monthly live call where people are able to call in and do some live Q&A. So if there's any sales questions, that is also another group that people can join. So that's what we have to offer on that at this time, yeah. Okay. Those are the two products that you have, there. Now, are you also doing any one on one coaching for people if they're interested, or? Yeah, so if people are interested in that they can always reach out. There is a way to do so on the website, just to go ahead and contact me. I think I have my number on there. You can send me a quick text or an email, and we can always talk about the one on one. But yeah, you know, the one on one stuff is probably, and that's really reserved for people that are really looking to make an impact on a higher level because we get to it. So you better be prepared because you're going to make an impact, but yeah. So those are for people that are really ready to skyrocket their sales and just start crushing with six, seven figures, so. Nice, nice. Well that's awesome, Debra. I mean, I'm so glad you joined me on the podcast. I mean, this is great info, and folks definitely connect with Debra. I'm going to put your webpage, all your social handles, and reach out to Debra, and I'm going to take that course. I want to be a better closer so I can't wait to take that. Was there a webinar that you were doing tied to that, or is. I thought you had a webinar too, or do you offer those every now and then? Maybe I got one on my email list or something. Yeah, we usually have them, and I teach them live. We usually have them about once a month right now. So if you decide to take advantage of the resource The Six Questions then you'll get an invite to the webinar. We have them once a month, so. Okay. Well I'm definitely going to be joining that. I would encourage all of you out there to do that. Be a better closer, incorporate the six questions, close those deals, and you will be able to kill it out there thanks to Debra. Thank again so much, Debra, for coming onto the show and sharing your knowledge, and I'm so glad everybody was able to connect with you and hear your zone of genius. Connect with Debra: Sales Mastery - 6 Secret Questions To Close More Sales Master My Sales Online Course Debra Angilletta
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |